This invention relates to animal or poultry feeding systems in which a pulverant, fluent feed is conveyed to a series of feeding stations where it is dispensed for chickens (or other animals or birds) to eat, and, more particularly, to a feed intake unit to which the feedstock is delivered and from which it is conveyed.
Poultry feeding systems are well-known in the art. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,850,307; 4,640,230; 4,003,339; 3,971,340; 3,598,087; 3,415,228; and 3,230,933. As shown in these representative patents, feedstock from a bulk feed tank or the like is delivered to an intake cup or hopper. From the hopper, the feed is delivered to a conveyor which services a number of feeding stations. In large poultry houses, one of these conveyors may have a length of up to 400 feet and there may be 200-300 or so of the feeding stations. The feed is conveyed, usually by means of an auger received in a feed conveyor tube extending through each of the feed stations. The auger may either be rotary driven or axially propelled within the tube to convey the feed from the intake cup and from feeder to feeder. Feed is deposited from the conveyor into feed pans of the feeders located at each station for subsequent consumption by the birds.
It is a problem with present feeding systems that they can become overloaded and jammed up with feed. This situation is likely to occur, for example, when the feeders are full. Then a substantial amount of feed is retained in the conveyor loop. At the same time, additional feed is being dispensed from the hopper into the conveyor. When that happens, the pressures created compact the feed in the conveyor loop until all void spaces are filled or packed. The resultant pressures eventually cause the auger to jam and stop moving. For example, in certain of the prior art feeding systems (such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,850,307), it is a feature of these systems that voids are intentionally formed in the feed intake cup so as to prevent the flights of the auger from becoming overfilled with feed. However, it has been found that if no feed is being dispensed to the feed stations and as the conveyor is run continuously, these voids tend to become overfilled as more feed is delivered to the auger. The feed at the inlet to the conveyor is also compacted, as is the feed above it. In this latter regard, even if the feed at the inlet to the conveyor is broken up, the compacted feed above it may create a solid bridge preventing any feed from reaching the conveyor from the hopper.
If the further delivery of feed to the conveyor system ultimately jams the auger, the conveyor feed tube must be disassembled, the compacted feed cleaned out, and everything then reassembled. The feed intake to the conveyor must also be cleaned out to break up deposits of compacted feed. This is not only a time consuming and expensive process, but it means the poultry is either not fed, or must be fed by hand or in some other manner during the down time.
It has been further found that in poultry cage systems, such as where laying hens are housed in cages (as illustrated in FIG. 17) and are supplied feed by means of a trough feeder rather than the pan feeders as shown in FIG. 1, and where one conveyor supplies feed to more than one trough feeder, operation of the feed conveyor may result in unequal amounts of feed in the feeders. As a result of this unequal feed distribution in the feeders, the birds supplied by one of the feeders may receive excess feed while the birds the other feeder may not receive sufficient feed which may result in different egg production rates. Further, in prior art trough feeder systems, continued operation of the feed conveyor would oftentimes result in increasing quantities of feed being deposited in increasing quantities of feed being deposited in each of the feeders such that too much feed would be presented to at least some of the birds which could result in overfeeding or in waste of the feed. Also, continued operation of the conveyor could result in overcompaction and jamming of the conveyor.
It has been found that differences in feed characteristics (i.e., the flowability and angle of repose of the feed mix being used) may have a significant effect of prior art poultry feed conveying systems jamming in the manner as above described.